Opinion
A Four-Corners Offense
If the Republicans can successfully execute their Four Corners offense, plus a few, they’ll wield more legislative power in Raleigh than they’ve had in more than a century.
Opinion
All Victims Deserve Justice
Opponents of North Carolina’s death penalty have seized on a new racial-disparity study as supporting their case. They obviously haven’t thought through its implications.
Opinion
Mattera Looks at Youth’s Infatuation With Obama
After finishing Obama Zombies, you cannot help but note some irony. First, Obama’s “digital domination” didn’t come cheap. There was a specific reason he opted out of public campaign financing. But liberals supposedly deplore the role of money in politics, don’t they? The second irony is that the tools of communication Obama employed to spread his message, led by television, personal computers, and cell phones, are the tools of freedom — communication is freedom — in critical demand by oppressed people across the world. It’s incredible to think about Obama using those tools to implement a socialist agenda that serves only to restrict freedom.
Opinion
Pop Goes The Bubbles
Growth-policy expert Randal O’Toole has an explanation for why some states had huge housing bubbles and other states didn’t.
Opinion
Tired of the AMT? Congress has your fix … for now
When the entire tax system needs an overhaul, it's hard to get excited about a new patch.
Opinion
Another Lesson About Faculty Pay
UNC officials have for years both overstated the risk of losing valuable personnel to higher-paid jobs and understated the real value of its faculty pay.
Opinion
What Is Not a Public Purpose
When fiscal conservatives question government funding for a program, they are accused of not valuing it. That is a mistaken view of the proper test.
Opinion
Lindalyn’s Journal
Research continues to affirm what common sense dictates: namely, that the teacher is the single most important factor in determining student achievement. Clearly, what teachers bring to the classroom – by way of aptitude and training – matters a great deal. So evaluating schools of education and teaching requirements makes good sense, especially if we are serious about raising student performance.
Opinion
Merging Into the Wrong Lane
A recent study provides evidence that states with fewer, larger school districts have lower graduation rates. The case for deconsolidating Mecklenburg, Wake, and other districts just got stronger.
News
Former Official Against PNG Merger
RALEIGH — The former deputy for longtime Democratic State Treasurer Harlan Boyles says the N.C. Utilities Commission should deny plans for Piedmont Natural Gas Co. to merge into its overall rate base a money-losing gas pipeline venture in the northeastern part of the state.
News
Piedmont Wants to Absorb ENCNG
RALEIGH — Piedmont Natural Gas Co. wants to merge a taxpayer-subsidized, money-losing gas venture into its overall customer base, which could permanently inflate its rates, according to one of its own witnesses in a case before the North Carolina Utilities Commission. Dr. Mitch Renkow, a professor of resource economics at N.C. State University, said he thinks "there is a substantial probability that (Eastern North Carolina Natural Gas) will never become economically viable." If the ENCNG territory, extended through 14 counties in northeast North Carolina, could never turn a profit with its customer base, then all of Piedmont's remaining customers in the state would have to subsidize it.
News
Top Lawyers to Discuss Incentives
RALEIGH — The newly formed NC Institute for Constitutional Law will sponsor a program Dec. 9 in Raleigh that analyzes recent court decisions on economic development. The program will feature Northeastern University law professor Peter Enrich, who was the lead plaintiff’s lawyer in Cuno v DaimlerChrysler, in which a three-judge federal appeals panel ruled that an investment tax credit that Ohio granted the automaker, in exchange for agreeing to build a plant in Toledo, violated the U.S. Constitution’s interstate commerce clause. Other panelists include Bert Gall of the Institute for Justice, Bill Maready, and Ernie Pearson of Sanford Holshouser.
